Another shame-filled puppy class.
I tried to do the right thing all week, practicing my homework with sit-stay, crate-time, etc, but no luck. She spent as much of the class as she could hiding under my chair, eyeing the other puppies askance, and when under pressure to perform, she looked anywhere but at me, and ignored all my commands. “Be firm!” The instructors say, but what does that actually mean? I’m sorry, but I’m a shy and diffident person. Should I be shouting?
The last session of the class is socializing the puppies. The instructors go around the class assigning the puppies to groups one or two depending on how big or sociable they are. When she came to me, she muttered definitely a one. So, Maggie ended up in the group with all the tiny shy dogs. Again, she just sat under my chair and watched all the fun.
Mortified, I left the classroom when our time was up in what I hoped was a firm no-nonsense fashion, but just ended up dragging the dog along the polished wooden floor, with all the other smug owners stuck trying to get past.
I’ve posted a copy of my homework sheet onto our family chat, saying that I need to be firmer, and my daughter said “I could have told you that for free!”
I’ve had dogs for years, how did I go this long not realizing how much I wasn’t up to the job? Could it be that I’m actually supposed to be a cat person??